


As I Live And Breathe

by mutterandmumble



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Orpheus and Eurydice (Hellenistic Religion & Lore) Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, I rose from the dead to write this fic, Mild Language, Not Beta Read, Purple Prose, Suga Ex Machina, disturbing imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 00:53:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17632979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutterandmumble/pseuds/mutterandmumble
Summary: Because though it’s stupid, though it’s crazy and unreasonable and downrightunrealistic, Hitoka is going to get her wife back. She is going to march right down to the gates of the underworld and demand an audience with the gods who rule it. She knows who they are- everyone does- and she knows where to find them. One way or another, she’ll make her way there, she’ll stare deathhimselfright in the eye if she has to, and she will get Kiyoko back.She’ll see her heart fixed if it kills her.





	As I Live And Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warnings:
> 
> Scene involving alcohol, description of crowds, line that can be interpreted as referencing suicide though that was not the intention, disturbing imagery/ discomfort involving one’s own physicality? Sort of? That’s the best I can describe it
> 
> So I’m back (back again) and my brain’s doing a Thing right now, which is... not good but I’m pulling through. And I’ve wanted to write something like this forever, so I figured why not now? It took me like two and a half weeks and was only supposed to be 8k, but here we are

It’s the time of day that Hitoka likes the best, when the world is winding down and everything is cast in a soft orange. On evenings like this, when the sky is clear and the air is warm and she can watch the sunset over the waves, she loves everything so much that it hurts. There’s fire in her veins and passion set in her bones, fascination in her thrown-back head and something addictive in the pounding of her heart. The taste of salt in the air, the way it settles heavily on her skin is borderline euphoric, and the sensation of nothing more than _feeling_ has her teetering right on the edge of being overwhelmed.

She runs on the beach, letting the wind tear through her hair and pull at the loose strands around her face until they’re whipped up into a frenzy. Her skirts are swirling around her calves, her shirt tucked into her waistband and buttoned all the way up, and her feet bare. The sand is rough and gritty against her skin, the spray from the waves soaking her arms and her legs, but she doesn’t care; there’s laughter tearing from her lungs and freedom in her movements.

The basket at her side is almost full. She scans the shoreline carefully, studying every single inch until something catches the corner of her eye. She hurries to it before the waves have a chance to wash it away, and within moments she has her prize clutched tightly in her hands. She’s excited- sand dollars are few and far between, but a wonderful surprise when found whole. The grains of sand littered on its surface scatter beneath her touch, sticking beneath her nails and getting lost in the folds of her skirt, and Hitoka’s excitement swells again because she’s just noticed _another_ sand dollar not an inch away. With as much care as she can afford, Hitoka places them both on top of the shells she has already collected.

Her basket is near full at this point, and the sky is growing dark, so she begins the short trek to her house. It’s small, made of worn wooden slats that creak at night and during the day and when it rains and when the sun shines, with a worn cobblestone path leading to its doorway and a small garden boxed beneath the window. The curtains are faded, and there’s always sand somewhere and Hitoka loves it to the ends of the earth. As she presses her shoulder against the door and pushes with all her might, her heart jumps even more because her wife should be home by now.

Her _wife_.

Her, Yachi-Shimizu Hitoka’s _wife_. She had been married to Kiyoko a week ago, in a small ceremony down in the town that still it seems unreal- but the heavy silver ring on her finger is very much there. The reception had been small, made up of only close, close friends and family, but it’s already wormed its way into her heart as one of her fondest memories.

She enters their house- for it has been _their_ house since long before their marriage, for many, many comfortable years- and lets a slow smile spread across her face.

“I’m home!” she calls. She walks farther into the entryway. There’s not much space, so within no time at all she’s in the living room where Kiyoko is saving her page in her book and standing to greet Hitoka. There are no words, just a sweep of her smooth black hair, a soft smile, and a few strides until she’s standing right in front of Hitoka and leaning down. Hitoka tilts her head up (she’s short, she’s very, _very_ short) to meet her. The kiss only lasts for a few moments before Kiyoko pulls back, keeping her hand on Hitoka’s face and circling a thumb on her cheekbone. 

“Hi,” she murmurs.

“Hey,” Hitoka replies.

Smiling, Kiyoko draws back. She begins walking back towards the couch, gesturing for Hitoka to follow. 

“I was reading,” she says when they settle. “I think you’d like this one. You should give it a try once I’m done.”

“Alright,” Hitoka answers. She and Kiyoko have been in the business of recommending books for each other for years now- they know each other’s taste by heart. So it’s with genuine interest that she leans into Kiyoko’s side, her basket kept carefully upright on her lap. “What’s it about?”

Kiyoko picks up the book and tilts it until Hitoka can see it. The cover is old, faded, and from the state of it it’s likely that Kiyoko picked it up from the secondhand bookstore up in the town; its pages are folded, and its spine is bent, and when Kiyoko ruffles the pages, Hitoka can make out some ballpoint pen scribblings lining the blocks of text. It’s well-loved.

“Poetry,” She says softly.

Hitoka likes poetry, and Hitoka loves Kiyoko; she’ll be reading that book at some point.

Kiyoko knows it too, because she puts the book down with that tiny smile she gets when she’s particularly pleased with herself. It’s not one Hitoka gets to see often- though in her opinion, Kiyoko ought to be pleased with herself _all the time_ \- so she hurriedly tries to commit it to memory.

“Anyways,” Kiyoko says, smiling slipping off her face as she speaks. Hitoka mentally throws her hands straight up into the air. “How was your trip? Get anything good?”

“Oh! Yes!” Hitoka exclaims. She scoots to the side and pulls the basket from her lap, plopping it between them. “Look!”

She carefully takes out her sand dollars, and then every shell and piece of sea glass and lays them on the coffee table that they dragged down from the town and situated in front of the couch when they first moved in. Kiyoko coos over Hitoka’s findings, lifting the pieces of glass to the light and humming appreciatively over the shells. Kiyoko’s preferences lie in smooth shells, Hitoka knows; she likes the careful iridescence and the sand-eroded surfaces. But she likes the broken ones too, runs her hands over them just as often and arranges them on top of their dresser.

“I’m gonna draw them,” Hitoka chatters. “I was a little nervous to go out today, because it’s supposed to rain, right? And I didn’t want to get lost or stuck or something, you know how easily I get lost, but look! I found so much!”

“You did,” Kiyoko says. When Hitoka looks up from her shells, she meets Kiyoko’s eyes. Then she blushes because though it’s been years, though it’s been so long since Kiyoko reduced her to a stuttering mess, the other woman still has such an effect on her. 

And she’s not proud, but when Kiyoko leans in to kiss her again she squeaks.

Kiyoko laughs against her mouth.

“They’re beautiful, as always,” she says.

“We’re going to have so many soon,” Hitoka mumbles. “What do we do with them all?”

“We’ll find room for them somewhere,” Kiyoko tells her. “Later, though. It’s my turn to cook tonight.” She sits back and stands up to start walking towards the kitchen. Hitoka stares for a moment, mesmerized by the way her hair spreads over her shoulders, before she scrambles to follow. By the time she’s caught up, Kiyoko has opened the refrigerator and is looking at its contents, lips pursed.

Hitoka doesn’t like that look. That’s the face Kiyoko gets when she’s frustrated and trying desperately not to show it. That’s the face she gets when she’s worried and trying desperately not to show _Hitoka_.

“Oh dear,” she sighs. “I forgot the milk. I’m going to have to go back down to the town.”

Immediately, Hitoka’s sudden burst of anxiety is justified- it’s dark outside. It’s much too dark for Kiyoko to walk all the way down to the town, and though there were no clouds in the sky when Hitoka was out, it was supposed to rain today and there could well be a storm brewing. It’s not safe. 

“It’s not safe! Why don’t we go tomorrow?” Hitoka exclaims. Her thumb has found its way to her wedding band, moving in comforting circles over the tiny bit of silver.

Kiyoko bites her lip. She looks conflicted, glancing back and forth between the fridge and Hitoka’s (likely pale, certainly frightened) face. “You can’t sleep without warm milk, though,” she says.

“I’ll be okay for just one night!” Hitoka insists. She lying. She’s not looking forwards to a night spent wandering their halls in her nightgown, face pale and feet bare and mind racing, but that situation’s bearable. Kiyoko venturing out into the unforgiving night is not. “Promise!”

Kiyoko’s brows knit.

And Hitoka knows right then and there that she’s done for. 

Because when Kiyoko looks like that, it means that Kiyoko has set her mind on something; and when Kiyoko has set her mind on something, especially something involving _Hitoka_ , there’s little to be done about it. Nothing could sway Kiyoko now. She’s a woman on the warpath. So instead, Hitoka steels herself- if Kiyoko can brave the night, than she can too! Even if the dark is so, so scary that she keeps a nightlight on when she sleeps! And a flashlight on the nightstand by their bed! And a box of matches next to the candle!

Oof.

“I’ll come with you, then,” she says, and her voice sounds shaky even to her own ears.

Kiyoko smiles and pulls away from the fridge, leaning down to press a kiss to Hitoka’s forehead.

“It’s dark. You don’t like the dark. I’ll be okay, I promise.”

Hitoka does not like this.

Hitoka _really_ does not like this.

“Are you sure?” she asks.

“I’m sure, Kiyoko confirms. She turns to offer Hitoka a smile, one of the ones she uses to quell the other woman’s nerves. It’s small, more in her eyes than anything, but upon seeing it Hitoka immediately relaxes. “I’ll be okay,” Kiyoko repeats. “I promise.”

Hitoka looks up at Kiyoko, more at ease but still uncertain.

“Really? Promise?”

In lieu of an answer, Kiyoko holds out her hand, pinkie extended. Hitoka giggles and copies her, linking their fingers together and letting the light catch on the silver of her ring. Kiyoko sees and holds out the hand with her own ring, tilting her head until Hitoka takes that one too and they’re standing in the kitchen with the refrigerator still open and their hands both linked. Hitoka’s positive that they look ridiculous, but then Kiyoko’s letting go of her hands and heading off to the front door, and the magic of the moment is gone.

“I’ll be back soon,” Kiyoko says. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” Hitoka replies.

Kiyoko slips on her shoes, wraps herself up in her favorite jacket, and leaves.

The door slams behind her with a sort of finality- oh no, Hitoka shouldn’t be thinking like that- the door shuts softly behind her, and Hitoka drifts back over to the couch. She has experience with the sort of anxiety that situations like this bring, and as a result she is somewhat aware of how best to deal with them. So she sits and picks up the book that Kiyoko had left, running her fingers over the cover and leafing through the pages. She can’t make out its title- there’s an R somewhere, and an M, but the others don’t have dark enough of an outline for her to decipher. She’s got time until Kiyoko gets back, though, so she kicks her legs up and tucks them beneath her skirts, leaning against the side of the couch and opening to the first poem.

She starts to read.

Three minutes in, and she’s fully immersed.

Poetry has that effect on her; she’s soft and malleable when it comes to pretty things, pliable and prone to giving in. The poems are pretty. 

So she gives in.

Ten minutes in, it begins to rain.

It starts as a light drizzle, small drops sliding down the window and blending into the soft _pitter-patter_ of white noise. She hardly notices at first, wrapped up in her book as she is, but once she does alarm-bells start pinging. She stands and walks to the window, the book tucked safely into her arms. Upon reaching it, she traces her fingers along the path of the raindrops, straining her eyes against the fog forming on the glass. She can’t see anything. It’s too dark.

At twelve minutes, the rain picks up.

Hitoka’s still glued to the window. She’s still playing lookout, and though her eyes have adjusted and she can make out the road, she does not see Kiyoko.

A fork of lightning fractures the sky. For a moment, the beach is illuminated. The water is frothing, choppy and white, and an image rises unbidden in Hitoka’s mind of the rabid opossum she had the misfortune of stumbling across a few years back. Wild. Dangerous.

She runs her thumb over her wedding band.

At half an hour, she begins to pace.

Back and forth, back and forth, _one-two-three-four_ , back and forth, back and forth, _one-two-three-four_. The floorboards creak beneath her feet, groan and moan like they’re going to give way beneath the weight of her worry. She keeps pacing (back and forth, back and forth) as the thunder rumbles. 

A walk down to the town takes her fifteen minutes, and Kiyoko ten. Accounting for five or so minutes to buy the milk, Kiyoko should be nearing home by now. If Hitoka is being honest with herself, she should be _at_ home by now.

But she’s not.

Where is she? 

At forty-five minutes, Hitoka begins to pray.

She’s always been careful. Thorough, to a near obsessive extent, and now, as her breathing speeds up and her heart pounds in her chest, it shows. She cycles through the usual roster of gods, the ones that everyone prays to when they’re nervous, and when Kiyoko still does not appear, she begins branching out. Every god she can think of, every major god, every minor god, every god who’s hardly a god at all, gets a prayer. The ones in the sky, the ones in the underworld, the ones wandering the earth right now, _right now_ , doing nothing to help her wife. Kiyoko has not done anything wrong.

_Hitoka_ has not done anything wrong.

At one hour, she begins to think of death.

Because if Kiyoko has not yet arrived at their home, she may well never cross their threshold again. And because death is the reason that Hitoka sews coins into the lining of her and Kiyoko’s clothing. It’s the reason Hitoka’s nerves are howling in time with the storm.

_One, two, three, four_

She knows about death- she knows what’s coming. She’s been told the stories.

When someone dies, their soul makes its way to the underworld.

_One, two, three_

Of course, that in and of itself has always been a pretty idea to Hitoka; a _soul_. An imprint of oneself that moves beyond the realm of the physical. Something that can feel and shift and be without the constraints of a small (small, very small) frame, or an overactive brain, or muscles that seize up and cease function. 

The idea of a soul is nice.

But constraints aside, all souls do at least one thing other than die; they pay the ferryman a single silver coin.

_One, two_

They get rowed across the stream, spirited from the land of living and discarded on the shores of the dead. The stream itself is a mystery- not something meant for human eyes, because it’s a blurred, mangled mess of reality. Like a smudged line of graphite.

_One_

And maybe, and this thought scares Hitoka so much that she likes to push it down, there are constraints even after death. Because the souls do not come back.

At one hour, one-minute, and fifty-two seconds, something deep, deep in Yachi-Shimizu Hitoka breaks. 

Yachi-Shimizu Hitoka is not a superstitious person.

She believes in ghosts. She believes in gods and crossing your fingers when you lie. She believes in knocking on wood and that bad luck comes in three quick doses. She believes that umbrellas should be kept closed indoors. 

She believes in souls, and she believes in connection; she believes that if people share a bond, they instinctively know if something bad has happened to those they are close to.

Like death.

She is not a superstitious person.

And right now, her insides are wrenching. Her stomach is turning and her large intestines is tying itself into knots, her blood is running cold and there are shivers running up and down her spine. Her nerve endings are screaming in agony. Her skin is still molded around her bones and her head is firmly set on her shoulders, and her heart’s beating as it should but _nothing_ is right. Her brain’s whirring but that, at least, is normal. 

There’s dread, cold and icy, settling in her limbs. And it has been one hour, one minute, and fifty-two seconds on a stormy night, and Kiyoko has not come home.

Hitoka could be reasonable. It’s a stormy night- Kiyoko could have gotten caught up somewhere. She could have chosen to stay the night in the town. 

Hitoka could be reasonable. It’s a stormy night- Kiyoko could have gotten hit by a car that couldn’t see her through the pouring sheets of rain. She could have slipped and fallen of the side of the road.

Yachi-Shimizu Hitoka is not a superstitious person. She is, however, a reasonable person, and reason dictates that Kiyoko will not be home tonight. Or tomorrow. Or the day after.

So quietly, with her head held high and her heart tearing itself to shreds, Hitoka turns. She walks to the couch and places the book on the coffee table. And then, slow and methodical, she stops the clock sitting on the bookshelf. And the big grandfather clock in the hallway. And the digital ones, the one on the microwave and the stove and the clock beside their bed.

She’s already in their room, so still moving with small, controlled jerks, she strips the bed of its sheets and bundles them up in her arms. She makes a quick detour to the kitchen to jerk open the drawer next to the refrigerator and grab the small plastic case of pushpins. Everything else in the drawer has been tossed and turned into disarray, first from her violent opening and then from the rooting around for the pins, but when she closes it she’s careful not to disturb its contents any further. Let the inside of the drawer be a mess. It doesn’t matter. And then Hitoka makes her way to the bathroom, boosts herself up onto the counter and sets about tacking the sheet over the mirror. 

Once she covers all the mirrors, she sits back down on the couch. 

And, with the knowledge that her wife will not be coming back, Yachi-Shimizu Hitoka sits and stares at nothing.

Hours pass. The storm rages on. The rain pounds against the sides of the small house, the wind moans and groans and cries, and the sky stays dark. If Hitoka were to hazard a guess, she would say that it’s edging on early morning; time is slipping by. She feels as if it has been years. The thing that broke deep, deep inside of her when she knew of Kiyoko’s death has long blossomed into a chasm, a splintery void that chews her emotions up and spits them back out. The book of poetry, as if summoned by her (lackluster at best) musings, has been pulled into her lap.

She opens to a random page. Then she stares, at the stylized text and the cream-colored paper and the faded ballpoint annotation that is nothing more than and arrow and the word _Sad_ coupled with a small frowny-face. The handwriting is large and loopy, the ink smeared around the _S_.

She closes the book.

Time moves on. The clocks stay still. The rain lets up eventually, still falling but as a light drizzle, and the wind has quieted. The sky is shifting from a dark black to a soft gray, the sun hidden behind a blanket of clouds. Either way, Hitoka can see now. She can see the road and the choppy waves and the beach she laughed on such a short time ago.

The house feels very small- it’s _always_ been very small, but when it was her and Kiyoko, standing together and laughing together as Hitoka read and Kiyoko played songs on her faded violin, it was cozy. Inviting in that way that only tight-knit people can be. The type of house that had warmth pervading every corner.

Kiyoko proposed right in this very room.

They had been married for less than a week. And now something deep, deep inside of Yachi-Shimizu Hitoka has broken, and she needs her wife.

So Hitoka stands. She smooths her skirt. Then she grabs her basket, the one she used yesterday (it feels so _long_ ago) to collect shells, and she upends it on the table. The few pieces of shell and glass that had stubbornly stuck to its bottom tumble against its surface. Hitoka shakes it once, then twice for good measure, and once she’s satisfied that it’s empty, she again makes her way to the kitchen.

First she grabs one of the plastic waterbottles that she and Kiyoko are always sure to stock up on, and places it in the basket. Then she adds another. Next she goes for a can-opener, and then some cans from the pantry at random; this will not be a long trip. Either she’ll make it, and she’ll come back to a house with food, or she won’t and she’ll have no use for food anyways.

She adds a blanket. She adds the largest carving knife she can find.

Then she arranges it all nice and neat, with the food and the can opener and the water tucked beneath the blanket and the carving knife lying on top of it all. As an afterthought, Hitoka grabs the book of poetry and places it over the knife’s blade. She redoes her hair into a tight knot at the back of her head. She slips her feet into her shoes.

Hitoka takes the umbrella sitting near the entrance, taking care not to open it until the door is firmly shut behind her- the last thing she needs right now is bad luck- and sets off down the road and towards the town, the umbrella protecting her head from the rain and the thick pleats of her woolen skirt staving off the cold. The handle of the basket is locked over the crook of her elbow, and for a delirious moment she feels like she’s going to a picnic down in the town. Like if she were to move her hand up just an inch, it would meet Kiyoko’s above it, and then she would turn and her wife would be there, and all would be right with the world.

But above her hand, there is only cold empty air. At her side, there is no one.

The walk takes fifteen minutes. It seems like much longer when she’s walking on her own, and every time she turns a corner or strays close to an edge, she wonders if she’ll finally find Kiyoko, lying cold and broken on the ground-

_No_. Even the thought makes bile rise in the back of her throat. She’s managed to fight off despair for this long, and even if the weight in her heart grows so heavy that she’s pulled down to the underworld itself, she will keep walking. 

Being pulled down to the underworld would work in her favor, anyways. Because though it’s stupid, though it’s crazy and unreasonable and downright _unrealistic_ , Hitoka is going to get her wife back. She is going to march right down to the gates of the underworld and demand an audience with the gods who rule it. She knows who they are- everyone does- and she knows where to find them. One way or another, she’ll make her way there, she’ll stare death _himself_ right in the eye if she has to, and she will get Kiyoko back.

She’ll see her heart fixed if it kills her.

Down in the town, no one greets her. She slips between the buildings with a practiced ease, dodging potholes and crumbling asphalt. Hitoka knows how she must look, moving slowly and carefully with her head held high and her umbrella clutched tightly, all alone in the early hours of the morning. And she’s wandering aimlessly too, because she knows that Kiyoko is dead, but she doesn't know how to _fix_ it. She’s got an idea, but where to start? Where to start?

She could walk in circles. If she paced for long enough, maybe she would wear a path into the ground. The soil would thin beneath her and she would fall straight to the center of the earth. Down, down, down.

“Hitoka?”

Her saving grace.

The space beside her is no longer empty. Now, ducking beneath her umbrella and taking it from her hand because he is so much taller than she is, is Sugawara.

Sugawara owns the secondhand bookstore on the fringes of town, the one where the book of poetry lying in Hitoka’s basket was bought. Sugawara is tall, with big hazel eyes, silver hair, and a kind face. He’s never given a first name. He’s also the worst type of secret- the kind known by everyone.

He had shown up, out of the blue, and worked himself into the town as easy as one-two-three. One day he was not there. The next, he was. No one questioned it. People come and people go, and some people aren’t _people_ , and that’s just how things work.

And Sugawara has a kind face, but he also has old eyes and weary shoulders and nothing to say when people ask about where he came from. So the questions died out and Sugawara settled, and people moved on.

Now, he’s staring at Hitoka, face quizzical.

“Why are you up so early?” He asks. He sounds worried.

The pieces of her heart jump. Hitoka shifts the basket to make sure the book is still covering her knife. She’s out on a mission to save Kiyoko, not to alarm innocent passerby. 

But the movement of her arm attracted Sugawara’s attention. He looks down and catches sight of the blade right before the book slides over it, and then he looks up in a quiet sort of resignation.

“How about you come down by the shop?” He says. “We just got a new shipment in.”

There’s a weight to the words. He’s offering something else, comfort or assistance or _something_.

“Sugawara,” Hitoka starts, because he’s offering and she’s unhappy. The umbrella is still held loosely in Sugawara’s hand, protecting her head, but there’s water on her face. “Kiyoko didn’t come home last night. It was storming and Sugawara, _Sugawara_ , I felt something in me break.”

Sugawara thins his lips into a line. He seems to age thirty years in two seconds, hair no longer silver but gray and the light in his eyes tilting over into exhaustion.

“Come on,” he says. He holds out an arm to her. He makes an odd picture, clothes and hair in disarray, eyes feverish in the early morning light. It’s hilarious to Hitoka’s fuzzy state of mind, how he’s standing so tall and proud and exhausted with his arm extended like the two of them are about to go on a pleasant stroll down in the park. They could feed the ducks around the pond. They could smile and laugh, and Kiyoko would still be dead and Hitoka would still carry a knife in their picnic basket.

Forcing the image from her mind, Hitoka loops her arm through his.

They start walking, Sugawara taking small steps so Hitoka can keep up and leading her through the winding road and down to his store. Hitoka stops him outside the door, rips her arm from his and throws it wide to bar his entrance before demanding that the umbrella be closed before they enter. Sugawara complies without so much as a word. The umbrella, collapsed down to a small cylinder, joins the rest of the supplies in her basket. The bell above the door chimes when they walk in. The sound is so cheery and that’s so wrong that for a moment Hitoka feels like she’s been slammed straight out of her body. 

Sugawara leads her behind the counter. Then he boosts himself up, patting the space next to him until Hitoka places the basket down and clumsily scrambles up next to him.

“So,” he says. “Kiyoko’s dead?”

Hitoka nods, not trusting herself to speak.

“And you’re planning to try and get her back?”

Another nod.

“Alright,” Sugawara hums. “Do you know how?”

Hitoka gives a minuscule shake of her head.

Sugawara looks at her for a moment, a long, drawn-out moment. There’s a curious glint in his eyes.

“You and Kiyoko are good people,” he says slowly. “You’re two of my closest friends.”

He’s still looking at her. Hitoka looks back.

“You help the people who need it. You don’t take more than what you need. You’re mindful,” he continues, counting his points off on his fingers. “You-“ and he points to Hitoka, brows drawn, “-you don't deserve this. The two of you should live a long, happy life together.”

And with that, with the whole of her predicament summed up in a few short sentences, he nods once and then slides off the counter and beckons for her to follow. She joins him on the ground and grabs her basket. He walks back out the door, taking care that Hitoka can follow him easily, and then they’re off to god knows where.

In better circumstances, Hitoka would giggle at that.

Instead though, she walks beside Sugawara with her mangled mess of morals and her cold grief and her complete and utter inability to laugh in the face of adversity. She didn’t bother to pull the umbrella from its place in her basket, so the rain is mixing with her not-yet dry tears from earlier.

“Hitoka,” Sugawara says out of the blue, “Do you know about the rulers of the underworld?”

Hitoka nods

“They mean well,” Sugawara continues conversationally. Like he’s talking about his favorite books. “But Kageyama’s a stickler for the rules; you’ll have better luck appealing to Hinata. You know what each of them looks like?”

Oh. Advice. 

Hitoka nods.

“Good, good.”

The conversation dies. The remainder of the walk to the beach is done in silence. Sugawara parts from her once they come near the caves, breaking into a light jog. Hitoka can hear him mumbling about how he _hopes that it’s still there_ , and _it’s been years now_. There’s something rising above the blank dread that has occupied Hitoka’s mind since Kiyoko’s death, and she doesn’t want to get her hopes up, but from the way Sugawara was talking earlier she can’t help but think that maybe, _maybe_ he’ll give her a hand.

He calls her over. She runs as fast as she can, basket banging against her hip and shoes pinching her feet.

“Hitoka,” Sugawara says when she gets there. He’s got one hand resting on a large slab of rock and the other hooked around its base. “You understand that you can never tell anyone about this, right?”

“What’s ‘this’, Sugawara?” Hitoka asks. She suspects, she certainly _suspects_ what might be under that slab, but she cannot get her hopes up. Not now, about this. 

“A trail to the underworld,” Sugawara responds. He cuts straight to the point, but his voice is still soft. Hitoka appreciates that- it’s a difficult balance. She’s in a somewhat delicate state right now. Any sort of softness is welcome.

He lifts the stone. Beneath it, there is a hole. She can’t see anything in it- it’s dark, very, very dark like it’s absorbing what little light is managing to break through the clouds. It’s like a void shot straight to the center of the earth. Hitoka thinks back to her earlier ramblings and snorts. How convenient.

“Living people aren’t meant to enter the underworld,” Sugawara says. There’s no humor in his tone. There no smile on his face.

“I know,” Hitoka tells him. 

“It’s going to hurt.”

“I know.”

“You might not make it.”

“I know.”

“It’s _loud_ down there, Hitoka. There’s for someone who’s alive. The air itself will be working against you.”

“I _know_ ,” Hitoka bites out. She’s taken aback at her own acidic tone, so out-of-character for her and a far cry from her earlier laughter, but it’s appropriate; she _needs_ Kiyoko. She needs her.

“Alright,” Sugawara says. There’s a small smile on his face as he reaches out a hand, lacing his fingers with her own and tugging her forwards until she’s standing right at the edge of the passage.

Hitoka looks down and takes a deep, shuddering breath.

“Sugawara?” she asks, because Sugawara is pretty but his eyes are old, and he smiles like he knows something you don’t and nothing ever seems to surprise him. “Who exactly are you?”

Sugawara purses his lips, tilting his head back and forth, back and forth, one-two-three-four times. The question isn’t really a question at all; Sugawara and Hitoka are close. She knows what he’s like. If anything, she’s asking for confirmation. Or comfort maybe, because she’s standing at the edge of the _underworld_. Maybe she just wants a bit of last-minute support.

In the end, she gets all three.

“Koushi,” he says at last.

Sugawara Koushi, god of healing and the lost. (And, apparently, rundown old bookstores that only carry volumes of outdated poetry and train-based mysteries. But that’s none of Hitoka’s business.)

She does know Sugawara- or Koushi, or Sugawara Koushi is she’s being formal. He’s strong. He’s helping her. She trusts him. So Hitoka takes a deep breath, gives Sugawara’s hand one last squeeze, and jumps.

It feels like hours before her feet hit the ground. The air whistles in her ears, ripping through her hair and leaving it wind-blown. It’s cold too, freezing almost, and she’s certain the tips of her ears are beginning to redden. The impact, when it does come, sends tremors up her calves and into her spine. She can’t see a bit- it’s much too dark. There’s fear settling heavily in her spine, threatening paralysis. She forges onwards, though, cursing herself for forgetting a flashlight and stumbling her way through the tunnels the best that she can. The path is long and it twists and turns, so much so that she gets all turned around and dizzy by the time the space around her lightens. Slowly but surely she can make out the hewn rock walls around her, and the stalagmites and stalactites that she brushes against far too often for her liking. Something crunches on the ground beneath her shoes, an ominous snapping and crackling that she can’t find the source of.

And then the tunnel ends. 

She emerges into what would be a cavern, if caverns stretched up much farther than Hitoka could see, and sprawled wide with no wall of rock anywhere in sight. There’s a haze in the air, a shifting mix of brown and gray that keeps everything muted. A measly few steps finds the trail behind her swallowed by the fog.

The only sound is her own breathing. She clasps her hands together, seeking some sort of warmth, but finds none- her hands are cold and clammy. Her skin feels dry and papery, rough and thin. The ground is an ugly mixture of trampled, dead foliage, gravel, soil, and damp masses of half-decomposed leaves that make the ground strangely spongy and give her something of a spring in her step. There’s bits of green every here and there, a yellow dandelion or a daisy or an orchid, but those are few and far between. She’s counted a scant four when something shifts.

Hitoka strains her ears. She can just make out, over the loud sound of her own breathing, the quiet babbling of a stream. It’s an oddly soft noise for where she is, but it’s much better than the sounds she herself has made, which are quickly growing unpleasant.

Grating.

Grating, grating, like two pieces of styrofoam rubbing together, or a piece of paper catching in the skin between her fingers, or that time she dropped a pot on the tiled floor of the kitchen. Every step she takes fills her with such a visceral sense of _wrong_ that it’s starting to hurt. Every single breath feels like tiny pins and needles stabbing into her alveoli. Every slow pulse of her heart sends something burning through her body.

Because Hitoka is sure of three things: first, that Kiyoko is dead, second, that she is going to get her back, and third, that she does not belong here. She’s still full of life. She’s not safe. And because she’s not safe, discomfort is growing inside of her, blooming along her organs like mold and latching onto her lungs.

She’s alive, and that hurts like nothing else. She is _not_ supposed to be here. Her skin feels thin. Her bones must be brittle where they’re tucked away beneath muscle and blood, and her arteries and veins run in a webbing beneath her skin that’s much too close to the surface. She turns her wrist over and sure enough there’s the delicate blue of a vein marring the skin. It’s close. She can hear her heartbeat fluttering in her chest, and the shift of her skin against her organs and her organs against their linings and her eyelids against her eyes and _what is happening_.

Her bones slot into her other bones. Some move in circles and others are sliding plates and others hinge on back-and-forth movement. And those bones that are so carefully slotted into other bones can pop out. She can be broken- she can be crushed into hundreds and thousands of tiny pieces. Her hair pokes into his skin. Her teeth can chip and shatter and break. Skin bruises and skin blemishes, skin cuts and people bleed.

She’s a person. She’s a mortal, she’s alive, and she’s in the underworld. She’s got skin. She can bleed.

Someone pokes her shoulder. For a near delirious moment it burns, like the contact is searing straight through her layers and layers of skin until it shocks her core and rocks the world on its axis. She jumps, breaths shuddering out of her lungs. Her head whips around, seeking out the source with a frenzied sort of panic, but there is _nothing_.

“‘S okay,” Hitoka mumbles to herself. It’s not, it’s _not_ , because her heart’s still beating, it’s thundering against her ribs so hard that she’s sure they’re eroding in her chest, because she feels like she’s melting away and her skin’s pooling on the ground.

But she needs to save Kiyoko. So pain aside, she crosses her arms over her stomach (for protection, for protection because she’s soft) and she keeps walking.

She draws close to the stream, which sets the sense of foreboding in her chest bubbling to the back of her throat. Her thoughts come easy, flowing quick and smooth and running into each other like the yolk of an egg. The closer she gets, the more that her musings lack meaning, turning from words and phrases into an incomprehensible smush of vowels and consonants. It’s not very nice outside, Hitoka notes. There’s a heavy fog settling on the banks of the stream and the air is difficult to breath. A breeze is sliding over her skin- she likes wind. It feels free. She used to feel free, free as a bird, but now she feels caged. By her situation. By life, by death. By the fog. There’s fog.

“The Stream of Consciousness,” she says out loud. This is it; the stuff of dreams and nightmares, the subject of campfire stories, the pockmarked mess of _real_ and _not real_ that keeps the dead _dead_. She shivers, one hand moving to lightly circle her other wrist. She presses two of her fingers to its inside, right above the vein. 

Hitoka thinks of Kiyoko.

She can do this.

The haze around her is growing thicker with each step. She can hardly see her basket at her side, much less where the ground ends and the stream begins, but the babbling is growing louder and louder and something damp is settling on her skin, so she assumes that she’s close. Though there’s no ferryman in sight. Hitoka is hit with the sudden realization that in all the stories, no one ever says _where_ to find the ferryman.

She’s wandering in the underworld, a mortal with flesh and blood, and she doesn’t know where she is going. It’s the beginnings of a disaster.

But she’s also in far too deep. She can’t stop now- she doesn’t _want_ to stop. 

So head held high, she walks.

The creeping sense of unease grows stronger the closer that she gets to the stream. By the time she’s walking the banks, her mind is clouded and her feet moving on autopilot. She’s still lost, still has no real idea what she’s doing, so she walks and walks and walks, hoping that something will click into place.

It takes a good long while, but eventually the haze begins to thicken. That’s not comforting, but it is a change; she must be getting close to _something_. The air ahead of her is near opaque even in the light, swirling tendrils of gray and brown mixing lazily and stopping inches from her fingers, like they’re pressed up against the wall. Experimentally, Hitoka reaches out a hand. It cuts easily through the haze. So with no more hesitation, she plunges ahead.

Hitoka clenches her wrist, doing her best to keep herself anchored as she tosses her head in slow circles to look up at the fuzzy brown fog and down to the dead grass beneath her feet. The haze along the banks of the stream has grown so thick that she cannot see anything in front of her. She feels her hand in her own, feels the material of her skirt brushing against her wrist, but there is nothing to see. The spray from the stream is coating her cheeks with a fine mist, the air is growing thick and heavy and choked, and she can no longer hear anything. There’s no water rushing, no thud of her footsteps, no rush as her breath is pressed from her lungs. 

It’s silent, deathly so, until the chattering starts. Soft and sweet, twining into her thoughts as whispers and caresses and murmurs and sending shivers down her spine. Fingers that are not her own brush over the wrist that hangs limp at her side. Something gnarled twists itself through her hair, gently combing out the knots and sending the strands floating down to lie against her back. Someone mumbles in her ear. Nails trace patterns on the back of her neck. Her teeth clack, her fingers are wracked with tremors and her eyes burn, but she keeps them stubbornly open- they’re starting to burn, gathering and shedding tears to join the drops already sliding down her face.

Something thick and heavy clings to the tips of her eyelashes. She allows herself one blink, then two, then a flurry of incessant, intense ones that have her face scrunching and that liquid dripping to join the tears. Never are her eyes closed for more than half a second- every time she is enveloped in darkness, the whispers grow more insistent. More patient, too, and mild; comforting like a thick blanket she can wrap herself in, suffocating like the rush of a river.

It’s a scary, scary feeling. She decides to blink a little less.

She does not think that she is meant to be here.

Her limbs grow heavy. The weight of the world feels like it’s pressing down over her head, the humidity is growing oppressive, and still _something_ chatters on and on and on.

But she keeps walking. 

It’s a feat, it’s a triumph, it’s a miracle, but she keeps walking.

Soon enough, the fog begins to thin. The space is still oddly bright, a light green haze accented by some otherworldly silver mist that’s diffused above her head, with the odd outcropping of rock sticking up here and there. There’s more flowers, too, now that Hitoka can see better; there are entire patches of green, shot through with purple and red petals, most of them trampled to a mindless mush that stains the ground. 

Louder than the babble of the stream, there’s noise. 

If her own voice was grating, than this noise is a relief; it feels infinitely more right. Allowed, or expected. It still hurts, but like a dull ache. Though that could well be just that it’s _loud_ , now. There’s yelling and screaming and laughter and a fair bit of swearing, too. She doesn’t know where it’s coming from- there are spirits milling around her, but just a few every here and there and certainly not enough to be making this sort of noise.

A few more steps brings the source into view, and suddenly Hitoka understands what is going on, because there are _people_ here. Spirits, definitely, but they just look like people. Real, solid people, with odd, blurry faces, some bearing marks and wounds and others looking like they walked in off the street.

And they’re- rioting?

No, not rioting. There’s fervor, and there’s fast, desperate movement, but they’re not rioting. 

No. They’re _dancing_.

In hindsight, she should have expected this.  
It’s common knowledge that for most people that their experience in the underworld will be dull at best- Hitoka knows this. Hitoka herself has accepted it.

So she guesses it makes sense that the spirits would want to make the most of what little time they have. That they could be found trying to feel something strong before an eternity of feeling very little at all.

Though knowing why the spirits are crowding like this makes it no less intimidating. Hitoka’s small, and she’s unfamiliar; this gathering is not one meant for the living.

She’s waved at by a passing spirit, who winks once they get her attention and staggers off, stealing sips from the bottle in their hand. She waves back a touch too late, shuddering as they grab a glass from a passing tray and knocks it back, throwing it on the ground when they’re done. They crush it beneath their heel. The spirits around them cheer. Hitoka jerks backwards, surprised at the harsh movement- she’s not made for this type of thing.

And it’s no small consolation that, though Hitoka may not be, neither is Kiyoko. She considers Kiyoko and her quiet, reserved smiles, and her love of seashells and poetry, and she knows for a fact that Kiyoko is not a part of this crowd.

But that does not change the fact that the crush of souls is an obstacle. She looks at the spirits and their flushed cheeks, their lack of restraint and fast movement, and she’s faced with the blinding fear that this may be something that she cannot overcome. 

Hesitantly, because she has a goal, and because she must, she ventures closer to the edge of the crowd. She clutches her basket close to her and draws her skirts up like a shield. The spirits pay her no mind, jostling her around and pushing past her into the fray. She takes one step forwards, and then two, aiming carefully for the spaces between the spirits. That doesn’t last long at all, and soon enough she’s stepped on more toes and apologized to more people than she cares to count. Sighing, she retreats- she has made no progress at all.

So how to do this? How to get through this?

The crowd is fast. The crowd shifts, bringing people into its fold and spitting them out in the blink of an eye. There’s no room for disruption, for anything that moves a touch too slow or hesitates.

And that means that, though it’s _unfortunate_ and _upsetting_ and goes against _everything that she is_ , the best way to do this is to play along.

So with all second thoughts locked firmly away, she jumps right into the thick of things. Hitoka knew it would be loud- even standing on the fringes, beneath the soft haze of the fog and the otherworldly light, she could hear the cheers and the yells and the revelry. The sound hits her like a wave, though, once she’s joined them. She heads straight for the nearest flat surface, a slab of stone covered entirely in wineglasses. From the looks of it, all the self-respecting spirits are drinking directly from the bottles.

There was music playing at some point, an orchestra in the corner, all dramatic, fast slurs and harsh drumbeats- dancing music. Now though, the instruments have been cast to the side. Someone has started up a long, repetitive chant. The voices in the cavern rise and twine into a chorus, cries and sobs and screeched words joining hands in clawing towards nothing. 

A nearby spirit grabs one of the glasses on the stone and tosses it back. Their forehead is covered in a sheen of sweat and they laugh, fast and hard and low. Hitoka doesn’t like seeing people like this. She’s curling in in herself, hunching her shoulders and pulling her fingers to her palms.

The spirit does a second take when they see her, head turning away and snapping sloppily back. Their features settle into a man, in his early thirties at the most, face flushed red.

“Drink!” He says. He gently pushes one of the glasses into her hands “Live with us! Come on!”

Hitoka takes the glass and hesitantly tips it towards the spirit. He laughs again, takes another for himself and mimics the action.

“To making it out alive!” He doubles over in hysterics, drink spilling out onto the grass.

“To making out alive,” Hitoka repeats. She takes a sip, slow and languid as the spirit drains his glass again. He gestures for Hitoka to do the same, whoops when she does and then staggers forwards and slings an arm around her shoulders.

“Come dance with us! Come dance with us while you can!” He gestures wide to the mass of yelling people. “Yell with us! Sing with us! Live with us!”

“Live with us!” Someone slurs. The crowd picks up the chant in a rounding, raising rhythm as they stomp their feet and clap their hands. Their words are cracked and broken, overlapping in harsh growls and clipped consonants. “Live with us! Live with us! Live with us!” 

Play along.

Hitoka grabs for another glass. She raises it high and they cheer, and they cheer, and they cheer; she downs it and throws it to the ground to loud cries of approval. Someone claps her on the back. It’s not the spirit, their acquaintance was short-lived, but it’s someone- she’s part of the crowd now. She’s moving, chanting and clapping and swaying to the beat. Her basket bangs against her hip in time with her steps. 

She moves deeper into the fray, shrugging her last few bits of hesitation off, opting to throw himself fully into _everything_. She dances in stomps and claps and cries, her feet pound against the floor as she turns and writhes and feels life bubbling up inside of her like a tired old song. Hands catch at her arms and her shoulders as people she doesn’t know and can’t be bothered to remember pull her into thirty-second waltzes, and her face flushes as her lungs burn. There’s fire in these people, a final, roaring cry before they’re resigned to dull and dry fields for the rest of eternity. 

Someone pushes a bottle into her hands. She tosses her head back and drinks, throat burning and eyes tearing as she forces the liquid down against rising nausea. There’s something thrumming in her veins, something new and vast and unfolding, something that has her pulling strangers into twirls and dips as they laugh and pat her arms.

She yells. They yell back. 

She throws himself into the masses. She forces herself into dependence, she pull and coerces herself into needing, and she watches these people willingly reduce themselves to wild and frenzied eyes. And all the while she keeps her eyes focused on the spaces between bodies, standing on the lookout for the banks of the stream and the ferryman who will carry her to her wife.

She’s feeling something strong. There’s a pull among these people, something tying her to them and them to her and all of them up in a tangled mess of limbs and revelry. It’s a disaster, but the crowd is thinning now, the spirits that she can see no longer dancing but instead milling around, looking empty. A fair few have their heads in their hands. Some are crying.

Some are wailing. 

Hitoka would stop. She would touch their shoulders and rouse them from their sadness, but she’s again approached the stream, and there’s a cloaked figure standing in a small boat, and she’s _done it_.

She breaks from the crowd entirely and stumbles the last few steps.

“Hello,” She says breathlessly. “I would like passage to the other side.”

The cloaked figure is silent for a good long while, leaving her to stare at the empty planes and shadows where their face should be. “Do you have payment?” 

She nods, moving to grab the knife from where it’s (miraculously) still sitting in her basket. She places the basket itself on the ground and lifts the hem of her skirt, maneuvering the knife the best that she can until it lies flush against the small pouch that holds the coin, and then she sets to sawing away at the stitches. The thread gives easily enough beneath the serrated edge, snapping and fraying until Hitoka can pull the square of fabric from her skirt. She carefully removes the silver and lets her clothing drop, reaching out to place the coin in the ferryman's hand. 

Apparently satisfied, he brings his hand to his mouth and- swallows it. Whole. Well. The stories said nothing about _that_.

Regardless, he lets Hitoka board. 

The ride across the stream is oddly anticlimactic. She uses it to catch her breath, because it’s so completely unremarkable, especially when held against the walk along the banks of the stream or the energy of the band of spirits. This, Hitoka thinks, just feels like a boat ride. And a short one, too; thirty seconds in and their boat bumps gently against the shore.

“We’ve arrived,” the ferryman says.

Hitoka disembarks. It’s clumsy, her legs getting caught up in her skirt and her hands flailing ineffectively as she comes seconds away from faceplanting on the ground. She catches herself, thankfully, and turns to see if she can’t salvage her image in the eyes of the ferryman.

He’s long gone. She hadn’t even heard him leave.

She shakes her head, turning to face the journey ahead. The tracts of land ahead stretch for as far as the eye can see, infinitely intimidating to Hitoka and her short legs and her tendency for staying firmly on the beaten path. It’s quiet on this side of the stream, too; there’s not nearly as much mist, and much less light. There’s not much of anything. Things seem much more solemn. Real.

She takes a deep breath. She begins to walk.

The rolling expanse of land is bland. Dead-looking, which Hitoka supposes is appropriate. The spirits don’t clump like they did on the banks, but instead trample blankly over the grass, leaving not so much as a flattened blade of grass in their wake. Often they stumble. Sometimes they fall. Sometimes they stand again, and sometimes they do not. They’re uncoordinated and messy, sprawling stick-figures crossing a blank page, empty and mindless like drones. They seem to like Hitoka, though; they gravitate towards her, poking shamelessly at her hair and clothes. Most are dull-eyed. All are aimless.

It’s off-putting, the way that the color seems to leach from their hair and clothes. Their features don’t settle. They hardly look like anything at all.

And then, with no warning, one breaks formation. It lunges forwards and grabs at her shirt, eyes rolling back into its head as it chatters on and on and on. Hitoka gasps and leaps backwards, ripping herself from its grasp. The spirit continues to claw forwards until it’s pressed up against her again, helpless and unseeing, head banging against her chest and drool dripping from their gaping mouth. Sobs wrench from its throat and spittle flies from its mouth, specks landing on Hitoka’s face.

She pushes at their arms, pulling their fingers from her skin only to find them wandering back again and again. They press into her arms, into her shoulders, babbling all the while. Hitoka’s mind goes blank, thought replaced with the dull thud of _panicpanicpanic_ , and in a last-ditch effort, she reaches for the back of their head and threads her fingers into their hair.

And miraculously, it works. The spirit’s movements slow and they sit with their head resting in Hitoka’s collarbone. Their shoulders shake. Hitoka feels tears beginning to crawl down her own face.

“There, there,” she hums. She rocks back and forth, shifting her weight from foot to foot and bringing the spirit with her. She hums a song that she heard on the radio once, keeping one hand in the strands of the spirit’s hair and the other rubbing circles on its back. The sobs trickle into soft, hiccuping cries as the spirit wraps her up in an embrace. Soon its death-grip on her loosens and it draws back, stumbling off to drift again, leaving Hitoka to diligently watch its retreat. Its blurry features have settled into the slightest smile Hitoka has ever seen.

The moment that it’s out of sight, Hitoka lets herself falter. She drops to her knees, the damp grass pressing into her skirt, and wraps her arms around her shoulders. Her breathing is rapid and irregular, her eyes filling with tears. There are wet patches on her shirt. Drool, maybe. Or tears.

Much too late, she remembers the knife in her basket. 

Then she remembers that she’s in the _underworld_ , and that a knife wouldn’t be much use anyways. It’s for security, she reminds herself. Empty comfort. She wouldn’t have been able to hurt that spirit anyways, because of that tiny smile, and the way they held her so tight that the breath was pressed from her lungs, and the way their face grew red and splotchy from tears. They weren’t a threat- they were _lonely_. They were _sad_.

Kiyoko’s down here. 

The image of the spirit’s rolling eyes and lolling neck plays on the back of her eyelids every time that she blinks.

She needs to get Kiyoko out.

So she allows herself thirty seconds, thirty seconds of weakness and sadness and crushing fear, and then she pushes herself up and runs her hands along her skirt.

She keeps walking.

There are no paths. There’s nothing. Hitoka feels empty, hopelessly lost as she wanders through miles of land that looks identical through and through- even the grass is trampled underfoot, not so much as a blade breaking the uniform formation. She could be walking in circles or triangles or squares or loops, and be none the wiser. She is not in control here.

Time passes, and she finds herself cracking open one of the waterbottles. She’s disoriented, turned upside-down and lost- there’s no sun for her to watch set. She’s never worn a watch. If she had worn a watch, she would have stopped it. She has no way of knowing how long she’s been here, or how long she’s been walking, or how long she still has to walk. It could be a while yet.

And a while it is. There’s no more encounters with spirits quite as dramatic as the one before, but a few cross her path every now and then. Once, one with long black hair falls in front of her. Hitoka’s heart skips a beat- she reaches out for them with bated breath, her hand coming a scant few inches from their shoulder before they turn.

It’s not Kiyoko.

Her hand drops.

She keeps walking.

Another half a bottle later, something appears on the horizon.

It’s a tiny little smudge, completely indiscernible, but it’s _something_. Hitoka picks up her pace, energy renewed by the prospect of finally making some progress, and before she knows it the thing in the horizon is shaping itself into a building.

Hitoka’s not stupid. She knows that there’s only two beings out here with need for a house. She’s found where she needs to go. And it’s smaller than she was expecting- the stories always had a big, towering palace, plated in gold and silver, with an intricately carved gate and opulent feasts every night.

But this is cottage, and a small cottage at that. There _is_ a gate, but it’s nothing special- stout, iron bars, no frills or inlays or designs, just high enough to keep people out. Now granted, with Hitoka being as short as she is, it towers over her. It’s imposing. She draws close and gulps, craning her neck up to see the spikes that run along its top.

She’s braved the underworld. She’s danced with the dead, she’s cut the coin from her skirt, she’s held a spirit in her arms, but none of that means anything if she fails now.

Her eyes stay fixed on the gate. Each footstep brings her minisculely closer, until she’s finally so close that she can see the individual panes of each window.

She’s done it. Just one conversation, that’s all she needs, and then she and Kiyoko will be able to live again.

Her first attempt at breaching the gate is a failure. The iron _clangs_ beneath her hands, and the bars wobble dangerously, but nothing gives. For a delirious moment she deliberates trying to climb it. Then she looks up and promptly dismisses that idea.

At a loss, she sweeps her skirts beneath her, wraps the blanket around her shoulders like a shawl, and sits against the iron bars. She pulls the book of poetry from the basket and settles it in her lap. The carving knife is pulled out and held loosely in her left hand. She runs her thumb over her wedding ring.

She begins to read.

And she reads, and she reads, and she reads. She reads until the end of the book, until the very last ink-stained page, and then she loops back around to the beginning. She takes longer on each poem this time through, tearing them to pieces in her mind and piecing them back together, having little arguments with the annotations in the margins.

She reaches the end again. She loops back around. 

She sits there for a long, long time. She drinks a quarter of her remaining water bottle and even breaks out the can opener and some _corn_ of all things, placing the knife in her lap and eating with her fingers. She sits and stares at nothing for a while. She reads the book again.

The fourth time through, with no warning, the gate creaks open. Hitoka scrambles up so quickly that her blanket almost falls, shoving the book into her basket and balling the blanket up so it fits too. After a moment of deliberation, she shoves the knife in, blade down. Still close enough for her to grab, but that’s more for peace of mind than anything else- Hitoka may be able to do many things, she may currently be defying death and the laws of life in an attempt to get her wife back, but she doesn’t think that she would be able to pull off stabbing a god.

She creeps forwards, pushing past the gate and walking towards the cottage. It’s small. Modest. The walls are painted an off-white, and there’s a picketed garden beneath one of the windows that holds nothing but some dead grass. Hitoka’s hit with a sudden wave of homesickness.

She pushes it aside. She’s so close now, so close that she can taste it. There’s no time for her stupid, stupid feelings.

As she draws close to the cottage, the door flies open. Someone hardly taller than her flies out and comes bounding down the steps, stopping inches from her face. He really is short, with big, hazel eyes and bright orange hair and a spray of freckles across the bridge of his nose. He’s dressed like a college student, in a faded hoodie and torn jeans. 

“Wow!” He squeaks. “You’re alive! Like, actually _alive_.”

“Yeah, no shit dumbass,” comes a voice from the doorway. A taller, _much_ taller and much more intimidating boy makes his way down the stairs. His eyes are a piercing blue, his hair a dull black. He’s also dressed casually, in sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt.

The two of them wouldn’t look out of place walking down the street of Hitoka’s town.

That’s part of it, she supposes. They very well may have walked down the street that she’s thinking of; Sugawara has lived in that town for a good while with no issue. And these two certainly are comparable, because they certainly are gods. Hinata Shouyou, god of fiery, blaze-of-glory deaths, and Kageyama Tobio, god of near every other kind of death a person can imagine. The two rulers of the underworld. Famously just, and famously fickle.

“She’s really short.”

And famously blunt.

“Tobio!” Hinata hisses. “You can’t just call people short!”

“Why not? I call you short all the time!” Kageyama shoots back.

“I’m not actually short! I _choose_ to be this height, idiot.”

“Sure you do-“

“Hey, I could tower over anyone if I wanted to! Anything!”

“I’d just grow taller than you. You’d never tower over me.”

“Hah!” Hinata whips his head around and stares Hitoka right in the eyes. “What do you think?”

He stares. Hitoka stares right back. Kageyama crosses his arms and scowls.

This is not what Hitoka was expecting. Their comical bickering and easy dialogue reminds Hitoka so much of the petty arguments she had with Kiyoko, the ones more for fun than anything, the ones that never lasted more than two minutes but they were _fun_ , that all of a sudden everything catches up to her right then and there and she bursts into tears.

Kageyama’s scowl immediately makes way for an expression of abject terror.

“Nice going Tobio,” Hinata scolds. He looks… significantly less terrified than Kageyama, Hitoka thinks. Her view isn’t exactly crystal-clear right now.

She does feel a hand lightly encircle her wrist, and she does follow when she’s tugged forwards towards the doorway. Kageyama follows the two of them, still looking vaguely constipated.

“Sit down, sit down,” Hinata says once they’ve entered. The inside of the cottage is just as comfortably modest as the outside- the floors are covered in a worn carpet, and the fan in the living room buzzes slightly. There’s a television playing a volleyball match of all things.

Hitoka drifts over to the couch, settling onto one of the cushions. The entire scene is so familiar that her tears begin to flow fresh.

“I deal with the dead, Shouyou! The dead! She’s not dead! And she’s crying!” Kageyama is saying behind her. Hitoka doesn’t know if he knows that she can hear him or if he just doesn’t care. Either way she turns, maybe to ream him out because she’s very upset, but probably to cower in fear. And maybe beg for forgiveness. 

Hinata beats her to it, though. He places a hand on Kageyama’s arm, smiling up at him.

“It’s fine, Tobio! We’ll hear her out together. I know that you’re bad with emotion-“ he stops here to poke Kageyama right in the chest. Kageyama’s face screws up, and Hitoka is certain that she’s about to witness some sort of godly-teasing-initiated apocalypse, when imperceptibly, so much so that she thinks she must have imagined it, his expression softens. “-and that’s why I’m here. Team effort and all that,” Hinata finishes.

“Fine,” Kageyama huffs. Then he turns to Hitoka.

She squeaks, hurrying to turn herself around and pretend like she wasn’t watching them. It’s stupid- silly. A childlike action in a very serious situation.

The two of them sit down on either side of her, and between their small house and the blaring television, Hitoka’s hit with the sudden mental image of a movie night, like the three of them are friends instead of two gods and a woman who _just wants her wife back_. That image is ruined by Kageyama, though, who keeps his arms crossed over his chest and his gaze fixed stubbornly over Hitoka’s shoulder. Hinata sits right near her side and smiles.

“So. Why are you here?”

And suddenly, all thoughts of movie-nights and sullen gods and volleyball fly from her mind. This is _it_. 

Hitoka takes a deep breath.

“My name is Yachi-Shimizu Hitoka. My wife died recently, and I want her back.”

Neither of them say anything. Kageyama’s attention has snapped to Hitoka and he’s looking at her closely, like he’s seeing her for the first time.

Hinata, too, is staring at her, eyes blank.

“So love,” he says slowly.

“Love,” Hitoka agrees.

Hinata’s eyes soften. Kageyama’s do not. Hitoka lets her fingers curl into the palms of her hands, her breaths coming quick. 

“There are rules. She’s dead. We can’t just let her go back to the surface,” Kageyama starts. 

“Don’t be so insensitive, Tobio!” Hinata scolds.

“I’m being realistic.”

“Tobio, we’re gods. Reality doesn’t exactly mean much.”

“Still!” Kageyama growls. His hands fly up, twisting and fluttering in frustration. “There are rules! There are way that things are done!”

_Rules_. Hitoka made it all this way to be taken down by some _rules_. A couple of lines on a piece of paper, and sure the paper in this situation might be the fabric of the universe itself, but still! The concept applies! She will not be taken down here, by this, like this!

“Then change them,” Hitoka intercedes. Then her tears start up again as she’s slowly crushed under the weight of her sudden bout of boldness. The full force of Kageyama’s glare is turned onto _her_. 

“I can’t just change things,” he says.

“But Tobio!” Hinata says. He leans forwards, over Hitoka’s lap to stare at him. “Look at her. She came all the way down here- doesn’t that count for something?”

“How _did_ she get down here?” Kageyama mumbles. They both stop for a moment, looking at Hitoka.

“Sugawara Koushi. He’s been living in our town.”

“Ah!” Hinata’s face brightens. “Suga! Man, I haven’t seen him in _forever_. Not since _Tobio_ over here put that keep-out charm on the gate.”

Kageyama scowls. “Oikawa wouldn’t stop pestering me.”

“That’s not the point right now! I think that we should let her bring her wife back.”

“And I think that we shouldn’t.”

“And I think that we _should_.”

“And I think that we _shouldn’t_.”

“Agghhhh, Tobio! Why do you have to be so stubborn?” Hinata throws himself back into the couch cushions, pouting.

“I’m not being stubborn! I’m being realistic!”

“We literally just went over this.”

“Well let's try this then!” Kageyama turns the full force of his gaze on Hitoka. She instinctively recoils, curling against Hinata’s side and tugging her basket close to her chest. “Why does your wife _deserve_ to go back to the surface?”

There’s very little genuine hostility in the question, but there’s enough to make Hitoka’s hair stand on end. But what little fear is there is soon pushed out by rage, by an all-encompassing, white-hot rage, because he’s asking why _Kiyoko_ deserves to live? Why smart, caring, _compassionate_ Kiyoko deserves to live?

And who are they anyways, to be sitting here and discussing the fate of her wife like it’s no more important than the weather? Live or die, it has no effect on them and they know it; they don’t _care_.

No. No, no, no.

With her tears still drying in her face, Hitoka jumps up. She turns to face the both of them. Kageyama’s sitting still, mouth hanging open in anticipation of what must have been another unfair assumption, or rude implication about her wife. Hinata shoots her a not-so-subtle thumbs up.

“My wife,” Hitoka begins, letting her anger seep into her words, “Is the best person I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s creative. There’s nothing that I could say that could even begin to describe how amazing she is, and you’re asking me why she deserves to be alive? You… you-“ she puffs out her cheeks. She’s certain that her face is bright red and splotchy, and her chest is heaving. Her sudden burst of fevered inspiration is fading quickly, leaving her shaky and unsure. “You don’t know anything,” she decides on.

She also immediately regrets it. Kageyama’s face isn’t helping matters- that seems to be a reoccurring theme, Hitoka thinks. She’s borderline hysterical, but that’s normal too. She’s hysterical, Kageyama’s angry, Hinata’s smiling, Sugawara’s long gone, and Kiyoko’s still dead.

Maybe she’ll be finding use for that knife after all.

Nobody says a word. Kageyama cocks his head. Hinata’s smile fades. They sit and stare at each other, stuck in a standoff, the volleyball game cutting to commercial and a lightbulb flickering out overhead.

“Well shit,” Kageyama says.

“Language, Tobio,” Hinata chides. He scoots closer to him, reaching out to tangle their fingers together. “But shit is right. I think we should let them go.”

“But… the rules,” Kageyama says. His words fall flat- they sound weak even to Hitoka, who’s very well-versed in shaky voices and stilted speech. 

“Weak,” Hinata scoffs, echoing Hitoka’s thoughts. A frown tugs at the corner of his mouth, and his eyes draw into a panicked bow. “Wait. Not Hitoka. Your argument. That was weak, not Hitoka.”

“Not Hitoka,” Kageyama agrees distantly. “Not Hitoka.”

He falls silent again. 

“C’mon. Let’s let them go,” Hinata says, running his thumb over the back of Kageyama’s hand. Hitoka absentmindedly mirrors his motion, reaching for her ring.

It’s certainly something, too, to watch Kageyama’s resolve crumble. She doesn’t think that there was much in the first place- _They mean well_ , Sugawara had said, _But Kageyama’s a stickler for the rules._

_You’ll have better luck appealing to Hinata._

That’s making more and more sense.

“Fine,” Kageyama says eventually. “Fine. You win.”

He stands, hand still holding Hinata's. They walk together to the kitchen, Hinata jerking his head for Hitoka to follow. She does, moving quickly to keep up with their brisk movements. 

Kageyama stops in front of the counter, pulling an old-looking home phone towards him. He takes the phone from the cradle and holds it to his as Hinata enters a number. He stays close and plays with the cord of the phone as it rings. And rings. And rings.

Someone picks up.

“Finally,” Kageyama huffs. “Can I get a-“ he angles his head away from the receiver, having the decency to look somewhat bashful. “What’s her name?”

“Yachi-Shimizu Kiyoko.”

“-Yachi-Shimizu Kiyoko down here? Died sometime within the past week? _Yes_ I know what I’m doing. Don’t talk to me like that- oh that was just uncalled for! This is stupid.”

He slams the receiver back into the cradle, lips pursed. Hinata laughs, resting his head on Kageyama’s shoulder. 

“She should be here any moment now. In fact-“ he’s interrupted by a loud creak. “-that would be the gate.”

Their little group walks towards the door. Hitoka feels strange- all light and fluttery, on-edge, like she wants to bounce on the balls of her feet and clap her hands. She’s close, she’s close, she’s so, so close.

And then she’s there.

“Kiyoko,” Hitoka breathes.

Kiyoko’s head snaps up. She’s hunched over near the garden of dead grass, jacket clutched tightly around her shoulders and hair dripping with water. Her lips are blue.

“Hitoka?” She says. 

“Kiyoko!” 

Hitoka rushes forwards, dropping her basket behind her. Kiyoko meets her halfway, catching her up in a tight embrace.

“Hitoka,” She says. “Hitoka, Hitoka, Hitoka.” Her hands circle Hitoka’s back, drawing her even closer. Her head drops down to the dip in Hitoka’s shoulder and she clutches tighter. Her wet locks of hair are cold against the skin of Hitoka’s neck, pressed up and wrung dry on her shoulder, but she doesn’t care.

“Hitoka, Hitoka, Hitoka.”

“Kiyoko,” Hitoka gasps. There’s nothing more to say; there’s no way that she could find a way to describe how’s she’s feeling right now. There’s little bursts of energy, of pinpricks and needles and stars at the tips of her fingers. There’s something exploding in her chest and pulling things into place. This is _right_.

This thing between them runs uninterrupted, despite the obstacles. They always pull through in the end.

“Um,” Kageyama says from behind them.

“Shut up. This is a beautiful moment.”

“Are you crying, dumbass?”

“No! You’re crying!”

“I am not!”

“Are too!”

“Are not!”

“Are too!”

Kiyoko lifts her head. Her arms stay firmly around Hitoka’s waist.

“Are they always like this?” She murmurs.

“From what I’ve seen,” Hitoka replies. They both giggle, drawing the attention of the no longer bickering gods.

“We should probably send them back up,” Hinata says. 

“You think?”

“Oh my _gods_ ,” Hinata huffs. He lets go of Kageyama- much to Kageyama's not quite apparent and yet somehow still obvious dismay- and strides towards them.

“Well,” he says, shooting then a series of finger guns. “It’s been real.” 

“We’ll see you soon,” Kageyama pipes up from behind him. He’s looming ominously. He may be trying to smile- Hitoka can’t tell.

She dies a little on the inside. Kiyoko’s hold on her tightens.

“Stupidyama!” Hinata says, jabbing Kageyama in the side. “We’re the gods of the underworld! That makes it sound like we’re gonna kill them! What he means is that we’ll come visit you and we can play like, Mario Kart or something.”

The last bit is directed at Hitoka. She is no less terrified.

“I’m… I’m terrible at Mario Kart,” she says faintly. Kiyoko laughs silently, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of her head.

“You’re not that bad,” she murmurs.

“I really am.”

“Are not,” Kiyoko says, pitching her voice slightly low.

“Are too,” Hitoka giggles.

“Are not.”

They both break into laughter then, and Hitoka delights in nothing more than _Kiyoko, Kiyoko, Kiyoko_.

There’s a light touch on her shoulder. A flash of bright light.

And then she’s sitting on the couch, where all of this began what seems like so long ago, with the book of poetry on her lap and the carving knife sticking point-down into the table. For a moment she panics, wondering if it was all a dream, if she never managed to get Kiyoko back-

An arm snakes around her shoulders. 

“You did it,” Kiyoko says softly. “I’m alive. We’re alive.”

“We’re alive,” Hitoka echoes.

They sit in silence for a moment. Hitoka hears Kiyoko’s heartbeat, feels the warmth of her skin against her own, traces the contours of her arms.  
Kiyoko contents herself with stroking her hair and fiddling with her fingers and her wedding ring.

The pendulum of the grandfather clock in the hallway swings back and forth, back and forth.

It chimes, the sound deep and resonant in their small house.

_One. Two. Three. Four._

**Author's Note:**

> That’s all folks!
> 
> This one was fun to write, especially the kagehina at the end there, even though bickering is difficult to write for some reason.
> 
> Please do leave a comment if you enjoyed!


End file.
